The Reese's Senior Bowl looked in its backyard and found some pretty good football players there - good enough to play in the NFL.

Mobile's all-star game unveiled the rosters on Thursday for its 69th annual contest, and six of the players had Gulf Coast football roots.

The local players coming home for the Senior Bowl included South Carolina cornerback JaMarcus King, who prepped at Blount in Prichard; The Citadel linebacker Myles Pierce, who prepped at Daphne; South Alabama safety Jeremy Reaves, who prepped at Pensacola Catholic; Troy quarterback Brandon Silvers, who prepped at Gulf Shores; Southern Miss running back Ito Smith, who prepped at McGill-Toolen in Mobile; and Auburn linebacker Tre Williams, who prepped at St. Paul's in Mobile.

"First of all, we all know what a hot bed for football the Gulf Coast is from Pensacola all the way over to Gulfport and Biloxi," said Phil Savage, the executive director of the Senior Bowl, "and so we do pay attention to the players that leave this area and go off and play for the various colleges and some that stay home and play here at South Alabama, like Jeremy Reaves, who's from Pensacola Catholic.

"It's important for us to monitor them and track them and see how they're doing. It is a bit of a reward for them to get a chance to come back and play at the Reese's Senior Bowl. ... I think it's a tribute to the quality of football played here from the youth level through middle school and high school and, obviously, they go on and progress at the college level. It's fun for us to have these guys back."

Williams is one of the four Auburn players in this year's Senior Bowl, along with place-kicker Daniel Carlson, safety Tray Matthews and long snapper Ike Powell.

Alabama linebacker Shaun Dion Hamilton also will be at the game. While a knee injury will keep him from participating in the on-the-field activities, Hamilton will be in Mobile to take part in other activities with the NFL coaches, scouts and player-development officials gathered in the Port City.

Jacksonville State also will be represented at the game by cornerback Siran Neal, who prepped at Eufaula High School.

All the local and state players are on the South roster, except for King and Pierce.

Neal is part of what Savage called "the most fascinating position group of the game" because of the "number of players from relatively small schools" at cornerback. In addition to Neal, Southern's Danny Johnson, Weber State's Taron Johnson, Dubuque's Michael Joseph and Murray State's D'Montre Wade are among the cornerbacks at the game.

For the second time, the Senior Bowl rosters contain eight quarterbacks, including 2017 Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield of Oklahoma.

Savage said the talent at quarterback dictated the extra players, and it wasn't the only position heavy with talent.

"Why eight quarterbacks, why eight tight ends?" Savage said. "Historically or typically, it's three and three on each side, so six total. It just felt like the depth at those two positions was strong enough to go ahead and add them. We had eight quarterbacks at the game two years ago and that included Carson Wentz and Dak Prescott, so it worked out pretty well. So we increased the number at those two positions this year, whereas most of the other positions stayed relatively the same as in the past.

"As far as the defense goes, I think the edge pass rushers group, the outside linebackers included, is fairly strong this year."

Among the outside linebackers is Shaquem Griffin of Central Florida.

"I think the most fascinating story of maybe the entire game is Shaquem Griffin," Savage said. "He's the young man who had his left hand amputated at 4 years of age. He's been a two-time American Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year. ...

"I think it's just going to be very inspirational to a lot of people to see him on this stage, and the way he's going to handle himself is going to be really encouraging to people across the country."

Savage tabbed another one of the pass-rushers -- defensive end Marcus Davenport of Texas-San Antonio -- as a leading candidate to be the breakout player of Senior Bowl week.

"I've had a number of NFL people tell me in the last month that this guy is going to show up in Mobile as fringe first round and he's going to end being top 15 (in the draft) when it's all said and done," Savage said. "He's a prototypical defensive end - 6-5, 275."

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The Denver Broncos coaching staff will handle the North, and the Houston Texans coaching staff will guide the South.

The Senior Bowl teams will have new uniforms, with the North wearing all orange and the South wearing all black.

The Reese's Senior Bowl will be played at 1:30 p.m. CST Jan. 27 at Ladd-Peebles Stadium in Mobile. NFL Network will televise the game. The Talladega College Tornado Marching Band will provide the halftime entertainment.